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SnowRanger Turn-by-Turn Directions

SnowRanger North America and Europe maps for Garmin offer turn-by-turn directions for on-mountain navigation. This is just like the directions feature that vehicle "sat navs" offer, indeed we use this capability built into most GPSes by making our trail maps act like street networks. Since we are using the feature as-is, there are a number of caveats and commonsense issue that you should bear in mind. Garmin Oregon

Most Garmin GPSes support this feature, even the "outdoors" models like the eTrex series. On vehicle type units such as the nuvi, the directions will be spoken, and you can be skiing along listening to directions in an earpiece if you connect one to the GPS! For outdoors units the directions are shown on-screen, and the unit will usually "beep" to announce that the directions displayed have changed.

It's essential to bear in mind that we are using the standard street navigation feature of the GPS, and do not have precise control over how it works. We ask that you use common sense when reviewing directions given and bear in mind the following points:

The GPS does not know what level of skier/snowboarder you are. We've arranged our map data so it will tend to direct you on green and blue trails (pistes), but it might try to send you on a red or black trail if it cannot find a better route. Conversely, it might send you on quite a long, safe, green route, while you would prefer to take some shortcuts along the way down runs (pistes) that you know are within your abilities.
The GPS treats most of the lifts and trails as "one-way streets". This makes sense, as you nearly always go "down" trails and "up" lifts (with some lifts, such as gondolas, being two-way). If you are at a trail junction, or at the top of a lift where multiple trails go off in different directions, the GPS may think that you already "on" the nearest trail and committed to going down it, even though the best route is actually for you to walk a few seconds towards another trail.
Lifts and trails might be currently closed, especially near the beginning and end of the season.
Sometimes you might be told to turn left when actually you need to turn right (or vice versa)! This may happen when you are approaching the bottom of a lift that you are to get on, for example. If the trail on our map approaches on the right side of the lift station you will be told to turn left onto the lift. However you might be skiing along the left hand side of the trail, coming more to the left of the station, and so for you it's to your right! It also may occur based on where the ski resort arranges the entrance for the lanes for waiting to load the lift.
The key message here is to pay more attention to the name of the lift or trail that you are being directed to, rather than it being left or right when you are getting close to it.
If you start a new route while you are standing on the slopes under or near the path of a lift, the route might start by putting you on to the lift. The GPS does not know that you cannot just jump onto the lift in the middle.
If the GPS cannot create a proper route from here to there, it will show a simple "as the crow flies" straight line to guide you towards your destination.

We feel we've done our best to implement this feature in the framework of the built-in Garmin routing system, and hope that you will allow us some tolerance of these issues. Consider the turn-by-turn directions more of a "suggestion" that the definitive routing you might get in your car.

Routes can also be created on your PC if you choose the CD-ROM version. These routes can be reviewed on the PC, include looking at their elevation profiles (no more flat cat-tracks!), and then downloaded to your GPS. Garmin MapSource

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Mountain Dynamics Inc. is not affiliated with some of the ski resorts mentioned herein.
SnowRanger is a trademark of Mountain Dynamics Inc.